World news becomes family news

Important points:

News from around the world takes on a personal significance and raises concerns for friends in different lands. For the Rev. Mel West, a retired United Methodist minister, his family includes people from places as diverse as Ukraine, Haiti, Nicaragua, Russia and the United States. He writes that when you turn on the news and see that it’s about your family, you see a light.

pastor mel west
Photo courtesy of Pastor Mel West.

The news that comes into our homes every day is not just “world news.” It’s news to my extended family and it drives me all day long when I think of those connections. Let me explain.

In 1989, I retired at the age of 65. My wife Barbara and I were still healthy. For 20 years, I developed and directed the Office of Creative Ministries for the United Methodist Church of Missouri. I have worked with some of the greatest faith-based non-governmental organizations that have grown out of the church. Barbara and I have decided to dedicate the balance of our active lives to NGOs that are doing exactly what our church and faith have told us to do.

We are the International Directors of Heifer International, Habitat for Humanity (along with the late Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter), Alpharit International, ECHO, Rainbow Network, and SIFAT (Servants of Faith and Technology). I was actively involved in the meeting. We initiated mobility and sewing machine projects around the world and contributed to the launch of the global market.

We visited 26 countries to assess and ensure quality work and maintain relationships. We lived and ate with some of the recipients, attended weddings, and did things together that made us a family.

So when world news reaches me, it’s often family news as well. It affects the people involved in my heart.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said: “If your heart is like mine, give me a hand.” World news very often features people who I “hold hands with.”

Here are some examples:

my bald kids

When news breaks that a nuclear power plant may have been bombed in Ukraine, I wonder how many of those beautiful bald kids I met in Moscow are still alive. And do those people still have stuffed animals?

In 1994, I visited a large 1,200-bed children’s hospital in Russia. It was dark and had an ominous feel to it. A group of bald children, probably between the ages of four and twelve, lay on their backs, staring at the plain ceiling. They were just some of the children affected by the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl. My heart went out to them, and they and all the other similar children in Russia and Ukraine became my family.

I went home, told Barbara, and announced the stuffed animal project to the entire United Methodist Church. Approximately 16,500 stuffed animals came in from every state in the U.S. Barbara checked each one for loose buttons and we sent them off to be delivered to Father Christmas.

A year later I was in Moscow with the president of the World Peace Organization. When I told him about animals, he responded with great enthusiasm. “It was great because it was for our kids,” he said. It was family to him too.

Sadly, the news I receive about my family from that part of the world right now is not good news.

my family walking

In 1986, my family grew abnormally and I received news from the group almost every day. I joined a group walking 1,000 miles for Habitat for Humanity from Americus, Georgia to Kansas City, Missouri. Our goal was to raise $1 million for Habitat and promote it. We walked the “Blue Highway” through small towns, cried “No more cabins,” and stayed in high school gyms, churches, and public campgrounds. Former President Carter left us and we met in Kansas City.

This is part of my family that I walked with for 50 days.

Pedro Castro López, from Guatemala.
Bishop Ben and Alice Ogwal Abuwanag, Anglican Church of Uganda.
Mongu Etoque, Nitu Kumba, Papy Macquanzi, Zaire.
Angelino Chipana Arriaga, Bolivia.
Hugh O’Brien, Ireland.
Sogano Memema, Papua New Guinea.
Azariah Rajskolaroa, India.
Jesse Infante, Philippines.
Zenon Corque Rojas, Peru.

We walked for 50 days and nights, ate, worshiped, slept, showered, talked, and became a family. When I read or hear news from their parts of the world, I think of them and wonder how they have fared.

my table family in haiti

In 1987, Barbara and I traveled to Haiti with Dr. Arturo Cabezus, president of Alpharit International, to evaluate Alpharit’s mission and recruit volunteers. One morning, as we started work, he said, We are scheduled to arrive around 10 o’clock, but she does not know that we are coming. But we shouldn’t be here for lunch. She is very poor and we don’t want to embarrass her. ”

We were warmly welcomed and she immediately said, “Next time we’ll stay for lunch!” She and Dr. Cabezas discussed it amicably and the meeting began. As I sat, I could see her small kitchen and the back door into a small backyard surrounded by an 8-foot-high block fence. I saw a woman come into the kitchen and start working. Then some pots appeared on the fence and I saw the kitchen workers collecting them.

At noon we had a rich meal and were asked to bless. I have a new understanding of “blessings.”

Today, whenever I hear about political unrest in Haiti or a tropical cyclone, I think of my family’s last meal there and pray for their safety.

my sioux brother

In 1978, as part of my volunteer work with the Heifer Project, I solicited the donation of 176 high-quality Angus heifers for a project on the Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. During the evaluation trip, I was traveling with the recipient, Mr. Thomas J. Hawk (“Tommy Hawk”), in a used, but in good condition, two-row Ford pickup truck. His family received seven heifers and one bull.

“Tommy,” I said. “What changes have you seen in your family since adopting an animal?”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “My wife and I have three children, all of whom are in school. Before we got the cow, we could only buy an old one-seat pickup, and we had to pay high interest on it. No. Rain or shine, my two kids always had to ride in the back. That’s not good for the “cold.” After I got the cow, I went to the bank and said to the banker, “I need a loan to buy a decent pickup truck.”

“He said, “Tommy, what collateral do you have?” Everyone is proudly riding around town in this pickup truck.

He continued: “Before we had cows, every fall we would go to town and my wife could buy a new coat and new shoes for our older child. Others had to wear hand-me-down clothes. It’s not good for a cold. Now we’re in the city in our pickup trucks and proud. That’s what made the difference.”

I have his words on tape, and every time I watch or hear the news about the Sioux or South Dakota, it’s about my family, and I’m also a member of the Cherokee Nation.

look at my new shoes

In 2000, I started working for Rainbow Network, an NGO in Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in Latin America.

Doctors worked every day in the countryside. I was there following the doctor and he was in his jeep and I was in mine. A woman came from a side street and stopped her car. She handed him the baby and he examined it on the hood. After she left, he came back to my car and said, “You know what? “Go home and give these people shoes.” The baby was vomiting bugs. ”

When our mission began, children and adults in Nicaragua were heavily infected with the parasite. It infects people who walk barefoot in the soil where animals live. (As a barefoot boy in Missouri, I took dewormers to get rid of parasites in my body.)

I went back to Missouri and told the story. And our church put a 40-foot container in the parking lot. Within a month, we collected 26,600 pairs of new and gently used shoes and sent them to the Rainbow Network. A few months later, I returned to the community center in Nicaragua. I felt a tug on the hem of my pants and looked down to see one of the cutest girls, probably around 5 years old.

“Señor, look at my new shoes,” she said. And she walked away in her shiny new shoes.

When I hear the news about Nicaragua, I think of that little girl I call Maria. Did she marry a decent man? Was she educated? she is family.

my family is at war

In 1995, I led a team of eight people from Alabama to go to Kuromi, Russia, and transform an abandoned building into a children’s center. We tried to use the construction project as a vehicle to build bridges of trust, love, gratitude and understanding. We spent a week working together on plumbing, painting, carpentry, cleaning, and sanding the sidewalks. We ate and swam together in a small lake nearby.

I asked the mothers there, “What do you want for your children?” Almost in unison, they said, “No more education and no more wars!” Now, when I hear the news, I worry about that part of my family. Are their children in Ukraine fighting their cousins?

When did you realize we were family?

There is a Jewish proverb: “When is the light of day? When you see a camel coming and you know it’s a camel and not a donkey? When you see a palm tree and you know it’s not an olive tree? When will it see the light of day?”

The wise man answered: “It takes the light of day to see someone coming and know it’s your brother or sister.”

When you turn on the news and see that it’s your family’s news, it’s a ray of sunshine. Once we realize this, we have “seen the light.” We are “enlightened” people.

The author, Archibald MacLeish, talks about this in a beautiful passage, which I have adapted here by changing a few words. We are together as riders on Earth, sisters and brothers in loveliness shining in the endless night, brothers and sisters who now know that they are a true family. ”

West is a former United Methodist minister in Columbia, Missouri. The founder of Mobility Worldwide has been praised for his commitment to humanitarian work.

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